


I'd Rather Be

by Liondragon (Sameshima_Shuzumi)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Additional Warnings in Notes, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Marvel Cameos, Memory Issues, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Russian Humor Is Dark, Unresponsive Patient, literal power imbalance, made up astrology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-08 13:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16430477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sameshima_Shuzumi/pseuds/Liondragon
Summary: (The funny thing is I love soulmate fics. Except the more I watch them shaken up with an antagonistic pairing like Steve/Tony? The more I want to see that ticking time bomb go off.- LD)Bucky wakes up alone.





	I'd Rather Be

**Author's Note:**

> Dark, dark dark. If you want to remix this monster, feel free. Just, uh, t.warn that sucker. You know the drill. Ain't mine, don't snatch, not endorsing.  
> EDIT: see below for serious TRIGGER not listed in tags. I apologize for missing that, it's an implied and ambiguous spoiler. Minor edits added.

When Natasha Romanova locates him in the Captain America exhibit, she delivers the bad news that Steve Rogers is still alive.

Bucky's already confused to begin with. Escaping Hydra and chipping away at seventy years of brainwashing can do a real number on a guy's brain matter. They're landing at Avengers Tower before it occurs to him to ask why Steve being alive would be _bad_.

It's not like he's slow in the head. Hydra allowed him a great deal of autonomy when it came to mission plans... so long as they kept a firm, painful grip on mission objectives. Bucky Barnes being alive isn't good news either. 

Natasha studies him for a generous five minutes. Bucky's a sniper. He waits her out. He's not sure if she's found what she's searching for when she speaks.

"Do you recall the basic operations of soulmates?"

Bucky squints at her. His metal arm itches, a psychosomatic reaction that's in his file, also known as the stuff that got beaten out of him. She's asking if this got beaten out of him too.

"They called them matches," says Hank Pym (level eight Hydra target) as he sweeps past them in the hallway. "Back in the bad old days. Try that."

Natasha wants to twitch and does not. This, they did not beat out of her; she's just that good.

"Oh!" says Bucky. He sounds almost human. The Soldier doesn't do _surprise_. "Match flares. Yeah, I know what those are."

He remembers nicking Steve's gloves in a misguided attempt to get him to touch people. Find his match. His forever and ever. Back then, he was young enough that they'd almost certainly be the one to Lift him. They were so young, the both of them.

But it's a new century, and Bucky is very, very old, and not quite young anymore. He's got a good imagination. Sure, Hydra honed it down so he could pop out in any kind of time-and-place to fuck things up. He figures after everything's that's gone down, humanity might've found a way to mess around with match flares. Soulmates.

His old employers — captors — sure didn't skimp on the _mess_ part.

  
  
  
_The association between Libra and the Soul Balance was established at a time when the autumnal equinoxes occurred within the constellation. (That matching dances in the modern age occur during harvest time is no coincidence.) The Babylonians called it "the Balance of Heaven." The ancient Chinese named it the "Celestial Balance" and later the palace for the Emperor's mates. In India it is simply called "Balance", depicted as a kneeling figure raising a smaller figure aloft. Most famously the Egyptians viewed it as the "Scales of Justice" wherein souls were weighed before gaining entrance to the afterlife. Yet to this day Libra's brightest stars carry Arabic-derived names which translate to "the Scorpion's Claws." Absorbing the older systems of Mesopotamia, the ancient Greeks did not view Libra as a separate constellation. Only with the rise of Rome did Libra become linked to the maiden priestess Virgo, after many ages of being recognized as the reaping claws of Scorpio [...]_ — AcademyWiki.strk

  
  
  
Bucky sits at Steve's bedside.

That, at least, is familiar.

His body is dotted with multicolored patches which monitor its functions. He's got a feeding tube in his stomach — Bucky winces; been there, survived that.

Bucky is numb. That's also familiar. His thoughts are clear, now, and that's new.

He thinks about irony.

It turns out that for all their grandstanding, Hydra hadn't messed with soulmates at all. Oh, they did the conventional nefarious shit. Doubled up on recruiting by indoctrinating or extorting soulmates. Held soulmates as hostages.

No, this time it was the fundamental laws of the universe at fault.

Bucky wasn't even surprised to find out about the bomber craft, and the ice. That was Steve all over.

The surprise, in part, was that Peggy Carter hadn't been Steve's soulmate.

Bucky can't be sore about the deception. It was a dangerous time to be bent — queer, that was the word. Besides, Bucky had kept his own share of secrets. Those had caught up with him too, at the bottom of an alpine ravine.

So Steve Rogers had woken up in the twenty-first century, fought an alien invasion, saved the day... and then Tony Stark had shaken his hand.

"Steve at the time was under the impression that Virginia Potts — Pepper — was Stark's soulmate." And Stark believed what Bucky himself had assumed as truth. As recorded history. Natasha is standing at the doorway. Bucky is getting a vague impression of his own that Natasha is blaming herself. "You'll meet her later. She wants to meet you."

"Swell," says Bucky.

Steve lies motionless.

Bucky's never seen the likes of it. He wouldn't have. He asked the A.I. if there had ever been a case. _Not for thousands of years_ was the answer.

Well, Steve always did like to beat the odds.

Bucky's metal hand is going to grind itself into dust at this rate. "Why did he...?" he begins to ask.

Natasha's hand falls open. It's bare. A Black Widow would be covered head-to-toe. Natasha shows her face and her neck and her hands are naked. "Tony lost his girlfriend of many years. He lost his privacy the moment the bond... flared."

Compromised. From the safe distance of a sniper's eye view, it occurs to Bucky that he's the last person who'd understand Tony Stark's choices. After all, Bucky survived. Despite all logical reasoning that he should not have done so. Ought not to have. He still doesn't understand it himself.

Which is why he'd like to know... "That's not enough of a... I mean, not that people need a reason," Bucky says. He knows Natasha understands that, fellow death-dealer that she is. Even if they don't give up, sometimes their targets— "Even if he hated Steve's guts, there's something missing. What else happened?"

"The Scale," Natasha says quietly.

For the first time since he entered the room, Bucky turns away from Steve's still form. His mouth is parted. He has eyes; this building is pockmarked with Stark's name, it's millions of dollars moving _a day_ , its simplest and most casual technology is cutting edge.

There are a myriad of factors that go into balancing the Scale. First and foremost is _age_.

Bucky's shaking his head. "Do you... do the courts calculate it...?"

"The same laws you grew up with. The gap is simple arithmetic." 

Of course they'd never challenged the precedent. Why would they? The only working versions of the serum were in this room. There weren't any other known fountain-of-youth formulas, or else Hydra would've gotten a piece of that action.

This wasn't a spouse giving up the nicer car because they lived a mile closer to work, or taking over the tedious chores because they were a few months younger. That was most couples: living in similar circumstances, or at least compatible ones, and that usually meant _within the same time period._ Captain America and Iron Man hadn't been 'most couples.' 

So Steve — youthful, beautiful, callow Steve, reeling from all the lost years besides — wasn't counted as the Weight. And Tony Stark, who'd spent half his life dreading a Lift, and the other half expecting to be one, found himself matched to a man several _decades_ his senior.

"He lost it all," Natasha says, driving ruthlessly on. Because Bucky had asked for the brutal truth, and she doesn't break the promises she makes. "His patents reverted to Steve. Every property, including this building—"

Bucky's read the file, he doesn't need the whole manifest. Cars, art, lab equipment, mansions, jets, yachts. Helicopters and race cars. "Steve wouldn't have kept any of that from him!" Bucky bursts out. He barely knows Steve, but he's damn sure of that.

"His inventions. His inventing," says Natasha. She is sad. Bucky doesn't need to be Russian to understand the glide of her lips. He sits back. "This building is run by his A.I. He was automatically locked out when Steve got his codes. I suspect Tony never changed that from when he thought Pepper might—" She looks away, reluctant to hurt her friends, even in absentia. That's new; that's definitely Natasha. "He couldn't open a project by himself. His security clearances... he'd had high-level access since he was a teenager. All revoked. Gone in a flash."

Bucky nods, mouth dry. (There is the strangely affectless tone of the A.I., with less inflection than a generic interface from a box store.) "All his files. The Iron Man suits." 

"His robots, whom he loved like children," says Natasha Romanoff. That was her name now, oh yeah. That was all they had; they were used to that being taken away. "If Tony had plans to fix... any of it. He was literally in no position."

Bucky hesitates to speak ill... but some instinct tells him Steve won't mind a bit. "Steve would've tried to step up. The old-fashioned way." Hadn't he been afraid of Steve doing just that, when he started to remember him?

She says: "Am I angry at Tony? Yes. 

"Do I think Steve made it worse? Most likely. 

"Do I believe," and her toe sweeps forward, a nervous tic or a perfectly executed tendu, "that they could have worked it out, and love would have prevailed?"

The Winter Soldier remembers: love is for children, and you are women of the Mother of Mothers. Betray your soulmate before betraying your Mother Russia.

Natasha opens her other hand. "But I understand why he killed himself."

A match flare burned for life.

Bucky slowly turns in place. He studies Steve. 

His eyes are open, and clouded over.

Natasha's hands return to her sides. "A year ago, Tony tried to give all those things away. Because he was dying."

Bucky retains enough Russian conditioning to recognize a joke. Ah the irony. He snorts. What a whopper... as only the universe could fashion. "Let me guess? He got himself fixed up, and found a reason to live."

 _I thought you were smaller._

"I guess you know all about that, Barnes," says Natasha.

They are both weeping. They don't bother to wipe the tears away. And before them, Steve lies silent and dead to the world, the serum healing him over and over before his soul can call him home.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> 3rd person POV is extremely limited, though not quite unreliable. Possible spoiler WARNING: implied murder-suicide in a domestic context. It is not actually known why Tony commits suicide... and also whether he knew what would happen to Steve, or what *did* happen to Steve. This is not explicitly stated in text. There is further discussion in the comments.


End file.
